Characterization of Patients with Ankylosing Spondylitis Receiving Secukinumab and Reasons for Initiating Treatment: A US Physician Survey and Retrospective Medical Chart Review

Abstract

ObjectivesTo characterize US patients with ankylosing spondylitis (AS) who were treated with secukinumab and to assess rheumatologist-reported reasons for prescribing treatment in clinical practice.MethodsThis descriptive analysis of data from a US retrospective medical chart review included patients aged ≥ 18 years diagnosed with AS who initiated secukinumab after 15 January 2016. Eligible rheumatologists used online forms to collect patient demographics, disease characteristics, co-morbidity profile, and treatment history prior to or on the index date, defined as the date of the first secukinumab prescription recorded in the medical chart. Information on physician-level characteristics and reasons for secukinumab prescription and dosing were also collected.ResultsMedical charts from 78 patients with AS who initiated secukinumab were reviewed by 25 rheumatologists between 7 July 2017 and 11 August 2017. Overall, 76.9% of patients were male, mean (SD) age was 39.8 (10.8) years, and 34.6% were biologic naïve. The most common reasons for secukinumab initiation among biologic-naïve and biologic-experienced patients, respectively, were efficacy/effectiveness (77.8%) and failure of other prior biologics (84.3%). Nearly all patients (94.9%) received a loading dose, including 150 mg every week (39.7%), 300 mg every week (53.8%), and other (1.3%). Overall, 73 patients (93.6%) received ≥ 1 maintenance secukinumab dose, of whom 56.2% and 43.8% received 150 mg and 300 mg, respectively, every 4 weeks.ConclusionsIn this US medical chart review of patients with AS who initiated secukinumab, approximately one-third were biologic naïve, and secukinumab efficacy/effectiveness and failure of other biologics were the most common reasons for initiating secukinumab.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s40801-018-0146-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

One‐Year Treatment Outcomes of Secukinumab Versus Tumor Necrosis Factor Inhibitors in Spondyloarthritis: Results From Five Nordic Biologic Registries Including More Than 10,000 Treatment Courses

“…It has been hypothesized that a change of mode of action from TNF inhibition to, for instance, IL-17 inhibition may be a favorable strategy in case of treatment failure, especially in patients showing lack of effect (5). To date, only a few minor observational studies (abstracts, monocenter, or <50-100 patients) (19,(21)(22)(23)(24) and no randomized trials have reported outcomes in SpA patients treated with secukinumab compared with a specific TNFi (25). A recent Swiss study reported comparable 1-year effectiveness of secukinumab versus TNFi in a TNFiexperienced real-life cohort, with results based on 106 patients treated with secukinumab, of whom 55 had available 1-year outcomes (12).…”

Health care utilization and cost associated with switching biologics within the first year of biologic treatment initiation among patients with ankylosing spondylitis

“…Although the reasons for discontinuation or switch were not evaluated in this study, prior studies in patients who discontinued or switched biologics found that the most common reasons were adverse events, lack of treatment effect, or disease progression. [35][36][37][38] Of note, higher disease activity is a predictor of discontinuation 35 or switch, 39…”